Wireless communication networks are widely deployed to provide various communication services such as telephony, video, data, messaging, broadcasts, video telephony, and so on. Such networks, which are usually multiple access networks, support communications for multiple users by sharing the available network resources. One example of such a network is the UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN). The UTRAN is the radio access network (RAN) defined as a part of the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), a third generation (3G) mobile phone technology supported by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). UMTS, which is the successor to Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) technologies, currently supports various air interface standards, such as Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (W-CDMA), Time Division-Code Division Multiple Access (TD-CDMA), and Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access (TD-SCDMA). UMTS also supports enhanced 3G data communications protocols, such as High Speed Downlink Package Access (HSDPA), High Speed Uplink Package Access (HSUPA), also known as Enhanced Uplink (EUL), and High Speed Packet Access (HSPA), which provide higher data transfer speeds and capacity to associated UMTS networks.
An example of an emerging telecommunication standard is Long Term Evolution (LTE) that is a set of enhancements to the UMTS mobile standard promulgated by 3GPP. It is designed to better support mobile broadband Internet access by improving spectral efficiency, lower costs, improve services, make use of new spectrum, and better integrate with other open standards using orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) on the downlink (DL), single-carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA) on the uplink (UL), and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna technology.
A user equipment (UE) with enhanced data communication capability such as HSPA and LTE typically reports its enhanced or best capability to the network whenever enhanced capability is available or supported. However, the UE generally consumes more power when it exchanges data with the network using its enhanced capability, and switching the UE between different communication protocols involves configuration overheads that can lower the UE's energy efficiency.